The current New Yorker magazine (May 23) has an article titled "Test-tube Burgers: How long will it be before you can eat meat that was made in a lab?"
The author, Michael Specter, was interviewed on National Public Radio's Fresh Air on Wednesday, May 18.

Specter's interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air is online at http://www.npr.org/2011/05/18/136402034/burgers-from-a-lab-the-world-of-in-vitro-meat, where you can listen to it, download the podcast, read the transcript, and comment underneath the article on the NPR website page.

Read a summary of Specter's New Yorker article at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/23/110523fa_fact_specter.

The film Forks Over Knives is now playing in many major cities throughout the US. It looks at the work of Caldwell Esselstyn and T Colin Campbell who champion plant-based diets. While Esselstyn focuses more on heart disease, Campbell's work has demonstrated that animal protein, regardless of fat, encourages the growth of cancerous tumors.

Film critic Roger Ebert's review of Forks Over Knives says the film has made him switch to a plant-based diet. Read the review at http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110511/REVIEWS/110519995. Ebert writes: "What every human being should do is eat a vegetarian diet based on whole foods."

Find out where Forks Over Knives is playing at http://ForksOverKnives.com.

UPC thanks Karen Dawn of DawnWatch (http://www.DawnWatch.com) for letting us know about Roger Ebert's review and about Terry Gross's Fresh Air interview with Michael Specter on May 18. UPC president Karen Davis posted this Comment under the Fresh Air article:

"Terry Gross is to be commended for inviting Michael Specter of The New Yorker to discuss test-tube meat on Fresh Air, particularly as the discussion stressed the horrible lives chickens and other animals are enduring in order to fill people's stomachs with muscles made of misery. As Specter says, test-tube meat may sound creepy, but the way animals are being raised for food is inherently creepy. The majority of chickens and other animals raised for food never set foot on the earth, never experience the healing gift of space, never feel a refreshing breeze in their entire lives. If I have a complaint, it's the suggestion that protein is synonymous with animal protein, which is not true. As well, many of America's current health problems are directly related to protein overdose. And as one comment notes, the muscles of the animals people are eating are intentionally kept unexercised so the flesh will be soft. All animals industrially raised for food are "veal" calves in this respect. Keeping animals severely crowded and unable to move is one way to insure their muscles will not develop normally." Karen Davis, President, United Poultry Concerns